Electricity delivery systems in buildings in the U.S. and most of the world, have evolved for safety and servicing reasons, to employ metal or polymeric conduits which provide a pathway therethrough for electrical wiring. Such wiring is employed for carrying current from a buss to individual sockets and connectors for equipment requiring electrical power and in other configurations for communications cables running between points. Running the electric and other wiring through a system of conduits protects it from wear over years of use and additionally provides access to retrofit or run new wiring subsequent to the completion of the walls of a structure which will encase the wiring therein. Such conduit in some instances is employed for shielding the contained wiring from EMF which can be generated by wires carrying electricity and electrical signals.
Electricity is conventionally run in individual circuits from a connection to the grid through a circuit breaker connected to a central buss or other main connection. From the circuit breaker connection to the central buss the electric wiring extends in a circuit, to one or a plurality of remote connectors to which equipment requiring electricity engages. Such circuits may include junction boxes and other connectors downstream. By junction boxes is meant any box or mounting component adapted for joining wires or engaging sockets or lighting or any electrical box used for any such purpose.
The connection to components using electricity conventionally engages the appliance or device requiring electrical power, to the circuit, using sockets and junction boxes and switches which can also connect with light fixtures and other components of conventional electric systems. For safety reasons, each individual electrical circuit is conventionally wired to carry electricity at a particular amperage load the equipment or devices anticipated to connect to the circuit will require during use. This is generally accomplished by increasing or decreasing the diameter or size of the wires running through the electrical conduits for larger or smaller current requirements for the equipment connecting to the respective circuit. This wire size requirement is also adjusted by the distance the circuit will travel from the connection to a circuit breaker at the main buss or junction box.
A circuit breaker or fuse conventionally connects each circuit to the buss which is engaged to the power grid. The circuit breaker is generally sized to trip or open to open the circuit, should the amperage load being drawn by equipment connected to points along the circuit exceed the designed electrical load of the wiring for the circuit. Thus, the circuit breaker supplying a circuit will have a maximum amperage rating that will cause the circuit breaker to open should the electric load being drawn by equipment engaged to that circuit exceed the amperage rating of the circuit breaker.
This safeguard, designed into electric systems, is an important factor in preventing circuit overload and resulting fires which such can cause. In many instances an electrical fire caused by a circuit drawing excess electric current can be catastrophic such as in a high rise building, a hospital, or on a ship far from port where a fire can threaten the lives of all aboard.
However, even the best designed electrical system is not a total safeguard from an electrical fire caused by circuit overload, overheating at junctions or sockets, loose connectors, or damaged electric lines and the like. For example, loose connections at a socket or wire connection in a junction box, will not cause an overload of current which will trip a circuit breaker. However, loose connections can generate substantial heat and in some cases sparks, which can ignite adjacent flammable materials in walls and ceilings and the like.
Further, over time, by accident or design, circuit breakers can be replaced with replacement breakers having amperage ratings exceeding the circuit they supply. Such can easily occur during maintenance when a circuit breaker is replaced with one of higher amperage due to the installed circuit breaker constantly tripping. While electricians would not make such a replacement, untrained personnel, owners and tenants, are well known for implementing such a fix.
Installing circuit breakers which have current ratings which exceed that anticipated in the circuit can easily result in overheating of wiring along the circuit in places hidden from discovery such as in within conduits or junction boxes. This is caused by the circuit feeding electricity to more equipment on the circuit with a sum amperage being used which exceeds that for which the circuit was designed. Further, loose connections along the circuit which cause heating to occur during normal with the correct breaker in the circuit, will emit heat which is significantly increased should the circuit draw more current than the maximum design. Such heating frequently occurs in junction boxes where multiple wires are engaged by wire nuts or in boxes housing electrical sockets and the like.
Additionally, connectors such as sockets and switches can over time become damaged or loose from the wire supplying them, or engaged in a manner which causes heating within the conduits and junction boxes. Again such occurs out of sight by users and inspectors, but adjacent flammable wood or plastic or insulation materials in walls and floors.
Such overheating of wiring in a junction box, or wall box holding an electrical socket or switch can thus easily become an ignition source and the cause of a fire. This is especially dangerous since with the heat generated by loose connections or wires running electricity exceeding the wire capacity, continues for the duration of the ongoing communication of electrical current to the circuit. Thus, not only does the wiring become hot enough to ignite the insulation covering the wires, or the walls, ceilings, floors, and other adjacent flammable materials, this heat continues as long as the circuit is powered, and even after a fire has erupted in most cases.
Of course, such an ignition source and resulting fire is hidden and extremely hard to initially detect and just as hard to extinguish once discerned. Thus, the risk of fire ignition and passage through interior wall cavities from overheated electric circuits and the like, is not readily apparent to a layman, but is well known to those in the business of electrical fire safety.
Often, as employees and firefighters do not have access to such relatively small spaces in order to view and discern flames, and to extinguish the flames, these fires can spread easily and quickly, even through structures constructed of fire-resistant material. Such a fire can ignite in the cable or wiring itself in a wall or ceiling if it becomes overheated or has been damaged by abrasion, rodents, or by other means where it can be exposed or slightly cut. Such fires can ignite in a junction box of a socket or where multiple conduits connect in a wall, to become a raging inferno and spread quickly from the ignition source by traveling through interior spaces of the ceiling or walls.
Still further, in these modern and uncertain times, fires in wiring between circuit breakers and junction boxes can sadly be ignited by an electromagnetic pulse caused by nuclear detonation of either a conventional or what is known as a “dirty” bomb. Such an electromagnetic pulse occurred in Hawaii decades past when testing by the military detonated over the Pacific Ocean, and could easily occur again in this uncertain world. One such an occasion, the copper conductors of all conventional cable wiring systems can instantly overheat which could/would lead to insulation degradation and fire.
While such potential from overheated circuits of all kinds is dangerous in homes, the risk of harm and loss of life is significantly higher in commercial establishments, high rises, and especially in container ships or cruise ships, since a fire on the open sea in such metal ships spreads quickly and can cause massive loss of life.
Accordingly, the ability to confine an electrically ignited fire to a single room or area, may depend upon the ability to preclude its travel through walls and electrical fixtures, or to accelerate to a larger fire subsequent to ignition. Although previously described conduit systems, and fire-proof and fire-resistant junction boxes are formed of materials meant resist the flames, conventional conduit style electric wiring systems provide no means to extinguish a fire once ignited in the circuit or in wall or ceiling or other space adjacent thereto, or in a junction box where such cables engage other cables or sockets for appliances. While the noted, use of conduit for communication of electrical wiring through buildings and ships and aircraft provides a pathway to contain the wiring, the heat and smoke generated therein easily escapes to the surrounding area and initiates fires.
However, conventional wiring and infrastructure systems provide no concurrent and jointly communicating pathway for the communication and activation of fire suppression and suppression devices and components. Instead, such fire suppression materials must be brought to the source of an electrical fire from a remote position such as a fire extinguisher. Such takes time by the time a wall-hidden or conduit-hidden fire is ongoing but first detected. This time wasted in seeking out a fire suppressant supply and communicating it to the exact location of the previously hidden electrical fire, gives that fire time to spread even further or significantly intensify due to continued electrical heating, where the resulting flames travel through walls and conduits of the structure.
As such there is an unmet need for a cabling system and method configured to route both wiring of electrical circuits in parallel adjacent pathways and through junction boxes and the like, which concurrently allows for positioning of a fire suppression system proximate to any potential fire generated in a conduit or wall or structure. Such a cabling device and method, in addition to providing suppression at or proximate to the point of any hidden or viewable electrical fire, should allow for concurrent positioning for a fire suppression pathway along and adjacent each circuit of electrical wiring. Such a system should also provide site specific fire suppression components positionable in junction and access areas and adjacent electric wires in the conduit system, which will automatically deliver fire suppressant to an overheated circuit. Such a cabling system when employed for fire suppression should also, once activated at a position along the conduit system for electrical wiring, provides a means for cutting electrical power to the individual circuit which has overheated and for signaling and alerting employees and emergency personnel of an overheated circuit or fire caused by one, even where that fire is not yet viewable.
The forgoing examples of related art and limitation related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive, and they do not imply any limitations on the invention described and claimed herein. Various limitations of the related art will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading and understanding of the specification below and the accompanying drawings.